The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky
As many millennials, I saw the film The Perks of Being a Wallflower before reading the original novel. I sat in the theater as the credits rolled, put my head in my hands, and bawled. After such a reaction, it was only natural to run out and buy the book.
Touted as a coming-of-age novel from the 90’s, this heavy drama is so much more than the green cover and typewriter font suggests. I like to call it the male version of Speak, because of the similar beginning. After a traumatizing event—disclosed later in Speak, but mentioned in the first page of Wallflower--the main character starts the first year of high school, after a long period of not speaking to anyone. An outcast whose middle school friends have now abandoned him, he struggles in his emotionally scarred adolescence. However, the choices the main character makes differ greatly from the protagonist in Speak; I have always thought much of the differences were because of his gender and the influences he allows into his life. While in Speak, she finds solace in her art class, the male protagonist in Stephen Chbosky’s novel explores sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll because of his friends.
At the start of the novel, the language is very youthful. The entire book is written as a series of letters to “Dear Friend”, and as time passes, and the protagonist develops a love of novels through his English teacher’s recommendations, the writing improves. Gone are the run-on sentences; in their place are poignant, tear-producing thoughts when the reader least expects them.
This is a very thin book, but it is not a light read. This is a novel of a very troubled teen with very frightening demons to face. I cried several times while reading it, even though I’d already seen the film several times and knew what to expect. I highly recommend both the film and the novel—in no particular order, as they are very similar—but I can’t stress enough in a spoiler-free manner that the story is incredibly heavy. Bring your Kleenexes.
Check out one of my favorite passages below to see if you like the writing style:
My dad had glory days once. I’ve seen pictures of him when he was young. He was a very handsome man. I don’t know any other way to put it. He looked like all old pictures look. Old pictures look very rugged and young, and the people in the photographs always seem a lot happier than you are.
[…]
I think about all this sometimes when I’m watching a football game with Patrick and Sam. I look at the field, and I think about the boy who just made the touchdown. I think that these are the glory days for that boy, and this moment will just be another story someday because all the people who make touchdowns and home runs will become somebody’s dad. And when his children look at his yearbook photograph, they will think that their dad was rugged and handsome and looked a lot happier than they are.
I just hope I remember to tell my kids that they are as happy as I look in my old photographs. And I hope that they believe me.
Touted as a coming-of-age novel from the 90’s, this heavy drama is so much more than the green cover and typewriter font suggests. I like to call it the male version of Speak, because of the similar beginning. After a traumatizing event—disclosed later in Speak, but mentioned in the first page of Wallflower--the main character starts the first year of high school, after a long period of not speaking to anyone. An outcast whose middle school friends have now abandoned him, he struggles in his emotionally scarred adolescence. However, the choices the main character makes differ greatly from the protagonist in Speak; I have always thought much of the differences were because of his gender and the influences he allows into his life. While in Speak, she finds solace in her art class, the male protagonist in Stephen Chbosky’s novel explores sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll because of his friends.
At the start of the novel, the language is very youthful. The entire book is written as a series of letters to “Dear Friend”, and as time passes, and the protagonist develops a love of novels through his English teacher’s recommendations, the writing improves. Gone are the run-on sentences; in their place are poignant, tear-producing thoughts when the reader least expects them.
This is a very thin book, but it is not a light read. This is a novel of a very troubled teen with very frightening demons to face. I cried several times while reading it, even though I’d already seen the film several times and knew what to expect. I highly recommend both the film and the novel—in no particular order, as they are very similar—but I can’t stress enough in a spoiler-free manner that the story is incredibly heavy. Bring your Kleenexes.
Check out one of my favorite passages below to see if you like the writing style:
My dad had glory days once. I’ve seen pictures of him when he was young. He was a very handsome man. I don’t know any other way to put it. He looked like all old pictures look. Old pictures look very rugged and young, and the people in the photographs always seem a lot happier than you are.
[…]
I think about all this sometimes when I’m watching a football game with Patrick and Sam. I look at the field, and I think about the boy who just made the touchdown. I think that these are the glory days for that boy, and this moment will just be another story someday because all the people who make touchdowns and home runs will become somebody’s dad. And when his children look at his yearbook photograph, they will think that their dad was rugged and handsome and looked a lot happier than they are.
I just hope I remember to tell my kids that they are as happy as I look in my old photographs. And I hope that they believe me.